I have been toying with the idea of a separation/divorce from my ADHD husband for a few months now but I can't seem to come to a solid conclusion. We have been married nearly 4 years, together 6. He is a generous, kind man and a fun person to hang out with.  When we met, he had all kinds of dreams and ambitions for the future, which I mistakenly took as realistic and achievable plans. Unfortunately, he also has what seem to be common ADHD issues as well, so I have slowly found out that his dreams are just that: dreams, never to come to fruition either due to lack of ability or lack of focus. 

In the last year, he has lost 3 jobs due to poor performance. I have had steady employment and good (not great) income since college. I do 90% of the housework, I worry about all of the financials, I make all of the plans (social and otherwise, even after encouraging him to do more of it), and I make 100% of the decisions (not out of a need for control). It's a mother/child relationship. Admittedly, I shouldn't have taken on that role so that is my fault too.  It actually feels like it's my life and he's just along for the ride (and not pitching in).  I'm stressed out all the time and have started going grey and losing my hair (I'm 32). I've talked to him about these issues for our entire marriage, and his reaction would range from blowing me off to temper tantrums. Our life together has been unpredictable and unstable. If it wasn't for my frugal nature and steady paycheck, we would be in serious trouble but fortunately we are not. We just don't have much in our savings account and can't afford the things that need to be replaced.

After this recent job loss, I told him I no longer have the emotional capacity to deal with all of this - it's been non-stop stress for most of our married life but it's been especially intense this last year. I had to get on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. I told him he needs to change or I'm leaving. To his credit, he went to a few counseling sessions and has started to share in the housework. The problem is, though, that I have seen him make temporary changes in the past only to fall back into old habits.  I feel I've lost all respect for him and I don't have faith that he can make permanent changes to the extent that I need him to. I need a partner, not a child. I need stability - financial and otherwise. I need someone I can lean on and who can take the reins every once in a while. We don't have kids, although we've tried. But after learning more about ADHD, I found out that it is heritable and I just don't think I can handle a man-child and an actual child with ADHD.

I'm not afraid of the logistics of leaving: my parents live in town so I can land there for a bit, and my job provides enough for me to be ok. I just don't want to make a decision that affects the rest of our lives based on how I'm feeling at this season of our lives, especially if the changes can be made.  But then again, divorce has crossed my mind throughout our marriage, just not to this extent. Marriage is important to me, but so is my mental health. He really is a good person, and I care about him and don't want to hurt him. I just can't see myself dealing with these issues for the rest of my life. I feel for him because he hates living with ADHD, but that doesn't make it any easier for me.  Does it get better? How long should I wait to find out? I realize nobody can tell me what to do, but anecdotes help.

I have lurked for months, coming here to read when I needed to feel like I wasn't alone and also to get perspective. I will often read about the challenges some of you face and think to myself, "I can't post here. Things aren't bad enough and my complaints will be insulting to those who have real issues." I've finally decided to post because I can't hold it in anymore. I have to talk to someone. This will be long and I hope at least one person will be patient enough to read it.

My husband and I are both in our 40s. We have been married for 19 years and have been a couple for 25 years. He has always been a little on the obnoxious side and can be talkative to a fault, but he is exceedingly creative and can be a lot of fun to be around. He has a great sense of humor and used to make me laugh all the time. He has always been a hard worker, to the point of being a workaholic, and while that has helped us achieve success in our life, it has also caused problems. Before we had kids, he would say that if he could just live at the office and never have to come home, he would love it. That was hurtful to me because, even though I worked full time then, I did the bulk of the housework and made sure dinner was ready for us when he got home so that we could spend the evening together, maybe talking or watching TV. He would rush through dinner, barely stopping to talk, and then sit down in front of the TV to play video games. I had two choices. I could sit and silently watch him, because if I spoke or asked a question, he might make a mistake in his game and have to start over, and this would enrage him. My other choice was to leave the room and find something to do by myself. He would play video games until late into the night, past my bedtime, and I got used to going to bed alone. This escalated after we got internet access. We only had one computer back then and it was in a small space, so I couldn't even sit with him and watch anymore. Once we could afford two computers, I got into gaming, too, and tried to play games with him. He would often end up frustrated with my lack of skill and finally told me he'd rather play games without me. This was crushing for me because I really tried to be interested in his stuff and he shut me out anyway. But at least back then he had to go to another room and physically log on to a machine. Now he has a smart phone that he can pull out and check anytime and anywhere all day long. If I try to talk to him or ask a question when he is on his phone, which is almost all the time, he gets angry and says he is busy, but I never know if he is busy with work stuff or just checking Twitter or playing a game.

He has worked his way up in his career and that has meant long hours. It was really difficult when our kids were little. We decided before we had kids that the person who made the least would quit to stay home with the kids, and that turned out to be me, which was and is fine. But, I didn't realize I would so often be home alone with a baby and a small child until 11 or 12 at night. I suffered from post-partum depression, so the isolation and loneliness was very difficult, but he was the only breadwinner so I had to adapt. I got used to being alone and fell into a routine with my children, because even when my husband is home and around, his phone is always in his hand and whatever is on it is the top priority. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is check his phone, and it accompanies him to the breakfast table. When our children ask him questions, he often doesn't respond, and I have to get his attention so he will acknowledge them. If he is asked too many questions, he will get angry and say, "Can I just do this right now?" No matter what we are doing: watching TV, watching a movie, visiting with friends or family, out at a restaurant, wherever, he is on his phone and is not present in whatever activity we are engaging in. We took our kids to the zoo for the first time in over a year a few weeks ago and he spent most of the time on his phone and pushing us to move to the next exhibit because he had seen enough. My mother was with us and I was embarrassed and ashamed of his behavior in front of her.

He was diagnosed with ADHD two years ago after he recognized a lot of behaviors in himself that our ADHD/ODD diagnosed 11 year old displayed and took it upon himself to get tested. I commended that and really thought medication would change everything for the better, but it didn't. Things have actually gotten worse, I think because he now feels he has an excuse for his behavior. What was perceived as a character flaw before is now dismissed as, "Well, my meds have worn off for the day" or "I have ADHD". He always has an excuse for ignoring me, ignoring our kids, ignoring chores and responsibilities around the house, basically ignoring anything that isn't in his wheelhouse: work, games, or Twitter. When I have told him how unhappy I feel about these things, he shrugs and says, "This is how I am." I want to tell him no, this is how you are *now*, because I never would have married you if you were always like this.

Finally, to the recent developments: he had been having a difficult time at his job and it is because the person who runs the company is really incompetent (it's a startup). I understand it is not him, though he does not make it easy for himself because when he is unhappy at a job, he makes everyone pay for it, including co-workers. About 6 months ago, the company cut everyone's pay by 25%, and we really struggled. I have always been in charge of the finances because I am the fiscally responsible one who will get the bills paid on time and keep our budget on track. He began to actively look for another job a few months ago and was initially talking about moving. I was very reluctant to do this because our oldest daughter struggles socially and seemed to be fitting in at school for the first time in years. Then he told me all of the jobs he was looking at were located outside of the US (one was in Sweden) and I told him I couldn't leave the country, that he didn't understand what that would mean: visas for all of us, having to sell all our possessions, giving our pet away, selling our car and house, etc. Things improved some at his job (salary went back up to 100% in February) but we didn't know how long that would last. The last I heard, he had talked to the owner of another startup that was doing very well and had a possible in at that company. Then, about a month ago, at about 11 pm, he asked me if he could tell me something about his job. I told him I was tired and was it something that could wait until the morning. He said yes and that was that. The next morning, over breakfast, he told me he was quitting his job that day to start his own business. That same day. I was stunned. This was something that could wait until the morning?! When I asked that very question, he just said, "Well, I wanted you to get one more good night of sleep."

Over the past few weeks, I have alternated between despair and rage. It is a real effort for me to appear normal in front of our children and I don't know what I am going to do in two weeks when they are home from school for the summer. He has turned our basement into an office and once the kids are home for the summer they are going to expect to be able to hang out and play in the basement like they have always been able to, and it will be difficult to keep them out of there so he can work. Even though he initially told me he'd get an office space, I haven't heard anything more about it from him. Besides, we have barely enough money in our checking account to get us to the end of the month, and about two months worth in savings before we are tapped out, so I'm not sure how we would even afford an office space. Every time I ask him when we are getting paid, he tells me "I'm working on it" and that we have enough money to last us until June, but that's only about 2 weeks away now. When I told him how betrayed I feel because of what he did, he says he did this to help us, as a family, but I still cannot get over not being told about this. I feel blindsided and completely out of control of my own life. He has a partner, whom I have met once, and an investor, but this investor still hasn't committed any real money to the venture and the lawyer he says he has hasn't been responding to his emails and phone calls. I am terrified we will be destitute by summer, and I don't know how someone who can't remember something you told him 10 minutes ago is going to run a successful business. Just last year, he told me that he would never want to own his own business because he wouldn't want to do all the boring stuff like paying taxes and crunching numbers. And now here we are, and I don't know what to do.

I'm not really looking for answers from any of you. None of you can help me solve this mess I'm in. I just don't have anyone else to talk to and I really needed to get all this out. I am miserable and scared and he is behaving like he didn't just turn our lives upside down. I'm sorry this is so long. If you read this far, thank you. Thank you for hearing me.

Hello I am a non ADHD partner. I came to this forum for some encouragement and some insight. I so rarely see any post of positivity and it's very discouraging. Yes I understand that being the non ADHD partner can be frustrating and there is little to be understood when you aren't living in at they live everyday. I have had my moments where I want to cry, but it's because I want to understand and I can't. I am not in his head everyday to even fathom what struggles he faces every single day. i can only imagine how frustrated they become when I can't understand what is going on.  But I try . EVERY.DAMN.DAY. Not every partner  adhd blames their everyday interactions on that, they learn how to deal with it. Imagine for a moment how they feel every time we snap at them, pull away from them. Imagine what they went through if they were diagonsed at an early age. The judging they endur d from peers and teachers and sometimes even their own parents. To be told they're different and how people call them crazy if God forbid they missed their medication. They have been made the pariah for so long. Then to find a wonderful person who. They love and trust so much to share their adhd with do that we can understand. Then imagine that same person Turning their back on them and treating them like they are some type of freak because of something they literally struggle to control everyday.

maybe instead of bashing them and making them feel like worthless, step back and evaluate yourself. What have we even done to try and understand? I read books, talk to people and try my damn hardest every day so that one day I can at least feel like at they are going through. We promised to love them so why be so quick to turn our backs on them?

Hello all, I've been seeing this guy for about a month, and we've been exclusive a couple weeks. In the beginning I was blown away by the attention and sensitivity he showed towards me. Our connection felt otherworldly, it was like love at first sight, something I had never experienced before and was never expecting to find. He told me pretty much right from the start about his ADHD, in addition to depression, and I didn't give it much thought. I guess I was incredibly ignorant. My perception of ADD/ADHD was of the rambunctious child in the classroom who couldn't sit still. I couldn't fathom how it would affect our relationship, if at all. Fast forward to after we had consummated the relationship and it was like a switch had went off. He went from being so in tuned to being indifferent, distant. Communication dropped and I was devastated. I felt duped, bamboozled. Had Prince Charming been a lying, faking frog all this time just to get me in bed? How could someone who only the night before was drowning me in "I love yous" now treat me as if I didn't exist if it hadn't all been an act. So I figured that was that, cried my heart out, and prepared myself for never hearing from him again. Lo and behold, he contacted me. It was brief, cold, nonchalant. I was bewildered. He said matter of factly that he had been busy with work and asked if I wanted to hang out next week...I was honest with him and told him how upset I had been and he apologized. After doing some research, many a "boyfriend adhd" Google searches later, I realize that that initial explosion of attention was indeed hyper focus. I've been trying to be patient and understanding, but I'm a pretty insecure and needy person and when the communication is lacking or is more business-like and less romantic, I find myself wondering if it's really a symptom of the disorder or if he is really just over me. Sorry for the length of the post. I guess I would be interested in hearing others' opinions on how to make this relationship work. Tips, strategies. I've read about trying new things and that but what about in between seeing each other? Ideally I want to share my day and hear about his, to connect emotionally again. Is that unrealistic?